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Level 2 is the data from the London Stock exchange which includes individual orders, trades, volumes and the current state of the 'order book'. The data from the stock exchange is in a raw form and the various commercial platforms display this information in their own format. The data is updated continuously showing the current share price etc. There are three types of share quotation methods currently operating on the London Stock Exchange. These are Market driven, Order driven and MMSETS (a mixture of both). All three types will be illustrated and explained in the following article individually. We will start with a Market driven stock. This is the traditional system, which was in use before the advent of the Order driven system (SETS). It is now used for the smaller stocks. The share prices are established purely by the Market Makers (MM). Our random example stock is Geong International, listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

The first part to look at is the YELLOW STRIP. This shows the current best bid and offer. This is known as the "touch". It is the highest bid of all the MMs and the cheapest offer of all the MMs. On the left are the names of the two MMs with the best bid (28) and one MM making the cheapest offer (33p). So 28p is the price you could get if you were selling shares and 33p is the price you would pay  if you were buying. UK stocks are always quoted in pence. The next thing to consider is "size". Below the yellow strip are all the MMs (or their acronyms) in this stock with their bid and offer prices and their dealing sizes. The MMs are obliged by the stock exchange to make and display a price and size at which they must deal. There are various rules laid down by the LSE which determine the minimum size. The size is displayed to the right of the price by each MM. In this particular stock every MM is showing the same size for the bid and the offer but this need not be so. The size is shown as 5 x 5 which means the bid price is in 5000 shares and the offer price is in 5000 shares. If you were a seller or a buyer of any amount up to 5000 shares the MM must deal with you (or your broker) at his displayed price. Any larger price then the prices may vety well be different.

However, is the price really 28-33? Obviously not; if you look at the top left corner just under the ticker (GNG.L) you will see the last trade. This shows 30p and the amount 1500. Is that a buy or a sell? You could say as 30 is nearer 28 than 33 it is likely to be a sale, although not necessarily. So we could assume the price is really 30-33p